Sunday, January 6, 2013

The Ladies Club

A couple of panty sniffing fashion punks slice open a window screen and break in. One of them is James Le Gross (Girls, Phantasm II). A policewoman returning home is outnumbered and sexually attacked by all three of them. Her martial arts training isn't enough to stop them, a particularly mean and ugly gang-rape ensues.

She wakes up and meets Dr. Constance Lewis (played by Christine Belford, who I remember mainly as Ricky Schroder's mom on Silver Spoons). Joan Taylor the policewoman is so distraught that she starts to fear her husband, she abandons her therapist and finds common ground with Dr. Lewis instead. Both woman bond over their hatred for rapists that have turned their lives inside out and they both are still haunted by the injustice and harbor a lust for vengeance against all men.

The punks are hauled into court and if you've seen Lipstick, you know that no jury can convict any rapist, because a woman's opinion falls on deaf ears as all the rapists tell the judge what a slut she was, case closed.

Diane Scarwid (Mommie Dearest, RumbleFish) is another woman who's sister was victimized by an escaped convict (Nicholas Worth, who's no stranger to forced entry). The main points that the women bring up in this film are valid and revenge seems to be the only solution. One woman at the Dr. Lewis' gathering (or Ladies Club) says "castration makes men less aggressive" and the Dr.scientifically agrees! The Ladies Club is preaching the same message as Vigilante (by William Lustig), instead of a blacked out street van that trolls around abducting drug pushers, they devise an all points bulletin to string up these horndogs and surgically cut off their balls. Dr. Lewis should have her medical license revoked and actually goes along and trains all of the woman in her ball remover club to bait registered sex offenders using a flask of poison liquor. The Dr. has a makeshift operating room in her house, apparently anyone can assist in an easy castration procedure, as she recruits ladies from the neighborhood to help.

There's actually a montage scene where instead of painting a house or working out, they follow around different scumbags and commit medical deviant justice.

Diane Scarwid accidentally gets raped by a schizoid, who's drunk mother used to lock him in the closet, in the process she fucks up her relationship with her husband. Dr. Lewis manages to cross the line even further and decides to jeopardize her own career in an effort to punish all rapists. As psychotic as many of these women get, I never felt conflicted and morally I was with them toward the very end.

The script is very well crafted and most of the writers have this as their sole credit, except Paul Mason (who ran Viacom and wrote Manimal before this). This is only available on VHS and should have a special edition, because its an undiscovered classic. The Lalo Schifrin score is really heavy on the electronic sleaze, nice stuff! I never would have heard of this film if Chas Balun hadn't included the trailer on one of his famed video compilations (along with 9 Deaths of The Ninja and Boys From Brazil).